An inside look at Haiti's business elite.
It's even worse than slavery, really, because at least with slavery you were offered some fringe benefits, as far as housing. In this situation, you're offered hard labor and that's it.
An Interview with Patrick James
Patrick James is the alias of a U.S. businessperson who previously lived and worked in Haiti. This interview was conducted prior to the negotiated ouster of the illegal Haitian military government and the restoration of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but it remains relevant and timely for the insights it provides about class divisions, power, exploitation and human rights in Haiti.
Multinational Monitor: How would you characterize the Haitian business class as a community?
Patrick James: The interconnectedness of the Haitian business community is amazing. I worked for a company and the guy right across the hallway from me, one of the partners, was General Cedras's brother; the other was a European businessman. My company had one partner whose sister is married to the European businessman, who's in business with Cedras's brother. The elite are somehow interconnected or related. Basically they have to work together in order to keep their power intact.
You can imagine what kind of pressure that must be when you know that there are six million peasants that basically could rise up and tear your house down some night, which, also, I experienced. I've witnessed what they call dechoukage where they just basically firebomb, loot and gut a house. Its a terrifying thing.
This is always in the mind of the elite Haitians. They ride around in their armored vehicles, they have their Uzis in their house. It's not uncommon to hear machine gun fire when you're in Port-au-Prince just because there's a thief trying to break in somewhere. And you'd better believe these rich people have got machine guns. The poorest Haitians cannot rise up. I mean there will not be a revolution in Haiti because you cannot fight these machine guns with sticks and rocks and machetes. There's only so far you can fight.
MM: Where do the U.S. businesses fit into that whole picture economically and politically? Are they part of that elite?
James: The rich Haitian families basically run their own empires. You have partnerships with American businessmen, European businessmen that are very lucrative because you have a monopoly situation in Haiti. There are only a certain amount of players, and if you can provide something that no one else can provide, you're in. If you have a sister-in-law that's, say, from Vietnam or Thailand who has connections who can get you all the rice you want to import, then you're the guy that owns the rice market in Haiti.
